


Sting

by Anthropedia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cutting, Pre-Canon, Read at Your Own Risk, Self-Harm, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicide Attempt, seriously most of this story centers around self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-10-01 13:07:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10190552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anthropedia/pseuds/Anthropedia
Summary: Scars that aren't yours staining your skin.Pain that isn't yours wracking your body.Knowing there is someone out there who has the potential to love you no matter what.Unconditional love for someone you might never even meet.That’s just the way it works when your soul resonates so strongly with another that you can feel each other’s pain and bear each other’s scars.ORAnother, way too angsty soulmate/soulmark AU that absolutely no one asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> VERY IMPORTANT: This story is in no way meant to condone, romanticize, or glorify self-harm or suicide. The only takeaway you should get from this story is that, no matter what you might think, such acts will ultimately hurt your loved ones as much as if not more than they hurt you. Whether it seems like it or not.
> 
> EQUALLY IMPORTANT: If you or anyone you know are EVER thinking about either self-harm or suicide and need to talk to someone who has been there and gets it, please absolutely ten thousand percent feel free to come talk to me. You can find and message me on Tumblr as Anthropedia (it says "It's Story Time!") and my ear is ALWAYS open.

The first time it happened, it started out as anything but comforting.

It wasn’t anything grand or gory. It was just a small upwelling of blood seeping up from the impossibly thin line now drawn across Lance’s wrist before enough collected together to spill over, running down his arm, leaving a trail of red in its wake.

He was shaking from head to toe. Partially from the sobs wracking his body that he was refusing to give a voice to. Partially from the sharp pang of adrenaline now rushing through his veins; making him feel both panicked and invincible in the same, all-consuming wave of something akin to nausea pounding into his gut.

It hurt more than it looked like it should. The small, shallow slice across the inside of his wrist looked like it could have been an unfortunately long, awkwardly placed papercut, were Lance not still holding the exact-o knife he had smuggled out of art class earlier that day.

But the small trickle of blood was quickly nearing his elbow. As Lance had no intention of making a mess of anything, he jolted himself into gear and rushed as quickly and silently as he could to the bathroom down the hall, praying to every god he could think of and any he might have missed that no one would wake up and spy him during his short, stealthy trek.

Thankfully the stars were in the right alignment tonight as no one stirred, even as he tripped over the squeaky, mouse-shaped toy left forgotten by the cat in the hallway for just such an occasion as this. 

The freezing tap water stung as it gushed over his cut; encasing it in an invisible bracelet of sharp, constricting cold before raining down from the back side of his wrist and running down to his elbow. But it did its job, washing away the trail of blood down his forearm and stopping the new blood in its tracks as it continued to try to escape.

Eventually, the fresh blood stopped coming, and though the small slice was now slightly raised, red and raw, the pain was beginning to fade from the sharp sting it had been into a less aggressive ache.

When he trusted that the blood wouldn’t continue to rise to the surface if he took his hand out from under the faucet, Lance dried his arm and snuck (more successfully this time) back to his room.

He quickly tucked his confiscated blade inside his pillowcase, against the underside of his pillow before returning to bed.

The adrenaline slowly subsided as he laid there, the quivering fear giving way to a balm-like calm that smoothed itself over his body, stilling his shaking and silencing the unwelcome thoughts for the first time in who knows how long.

Now, this was something he could get used to. The pain that had felt unnecessarily harsh before now paled in comparison to the intensity of the peace he felt seeping through his body.

Lance couldn’t even bring himself to regret tonight’s poor life choice as he reveled in the release, fading into a nightmare free sleep for the first time in months.  
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

The first time it happened, Keith had no idea what was going on.

It had woken him up from a dead sleep, causing him to cry out in shock before freezing in place; listening as hard as he could for any telltale sounds of his current guardians coming to scold him for waking them up.

Luckily no such sounds came and soon Keith was reaching for his bed lamp to check his offending wrist for any clue as to what the fuck just seared across it.

At first, in the dim light of the incandescent bulb, dulled by the dirty old lampshade, Keith didn’t see anything to explain the stinging sensation still tingling across the inside of his left wrist.

But as he brought his wrist closer to the lamp, he could faintly see a light, almost periwinkle blue streak at the base of his wrist that he had never seen before.

Sure he’d heard about soulmates and soulmarks, but to be honest, he had always assumed they were just another one of those things for other people. People who actually got along with people and knew how to make connections with them.

Many of his peers had long since noticed their first marks. Scrapes that weren’t theirs staining their knees and elbows with bright colors. Strangely excited reactions to phantom pains caused by an accident-prone someone they had never even met.

It all seemed like weird, unnecessary business to Keith who had no interest in feeling some random stranger’s pain or vice versa. Let alone the possibility of someone else’s mistakes tie-dyeing his own skin.

Of course, he’d always been a little more careful than he otherwise would have. Not wanting to risk bothering anyone else with his own pain on accident.

But at this point, aside from the few times he might have had felt a pain that he wasn’t sure was his own, he’d had no reason to worry about it. Sure it was a little lonely, but with none of the telltale marks, Keith had all but decided he must not have a soulmate to mark up his skin. And to be honest, he had never really minded.

Yet here it was. Undeniable proof that Keith wasn’t as alone as he thought.

Why did the sight of the pale blue line make his stomach churn unpleasantly, though?

He had no idea what could have caused such a scar on the other person’s skin. It was in an odd place and too long for something like a papercut. But it wasn’t wide enough to be your usual scrape. Maybe it was a cat scratch or something.

It took Keith far longer than it usually did to fall back asleep after turning off the light. He wasn’t exactly creative enough to begin imagining who this mystery person was, but his mind was still buzzing around, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Compile the very limited evidence in front of him into a trail he could follow.

But eventually sleep did come to claim him once again, and as he dreamt, his dreams were all slightly tinged with a new shade of soft, light blue he had never noticed before.


	2. Chapter 2

Throughout the next few years, Lance found himself doing it again and again.

Sometimes he allowed himself to wonder if his actions were leaving marks on anyone but himself. But the ever-helpful voice of doubt in his mind was always quick to echo the words of those he used to call friends when he was younger; reminding him of just how stupid the notion was. The idea that anyone could ever find him worth enough of their time or energy to ever connect on such a level as a soulmate of any kind was nothing short of selfish fantasy.

Lance knew what he was talking about, too. He liked to consider himself more familiar with the way soulmates worked than most his age. In his family alone, there were two pairs of soulmates. Of course, his parents were one of those fairytale, star-crossed lover kinds you find in movies and books. Seeming to have never left the honeymoon phase of their relationship, it didn’t matter that they were fully grown adults who had known each other for over half their lives. They were still making googly eyes at each other and being that adorable couple everyone dreaded sitting beside in movie theaters anyway.

His sisters, Miranda, two years older and Vienna, a year younger were the other pair. Attached at the hip since before he could remember, they were never very far out of each other’s sight if they could help it. Always giggling about some inside joke and having entire conversations by glancing at each other.

Yep, his family was always there to unintentionally remind him of what he could never have. His sisters had actually been the first clue he was a waste of space. As much as they professed to love him, it was clear that he was more of an inconvenience than anything else. An extra, unnecessary separation between them.

Of course, he could never begrudge any of them for his lot in life as the fifth wheel in his own family. He loved them with all his heart and on some level, he knew they must love him back. To some extent anyway. Always warm and unfailingly kind and accepting of him, as they were. It wasn’t their fault they were who they were. Or that he was the way he was. They just couldn’t love him as much as they loved each other. That’s just the way it worked when your soul resonated so strongly with another that you could feel each other’s pain and bear each other’s scars.

So Lance had zero qualms with slicing his wrist to shreds whenever the loneliness got too much to bear or when the thoughts in his head grew louder than the voices of those around him.

He was careful about it, though. Anyone else ever finding out was never an option. He had an image to uphold after all. One he had spent a long time crafting. It wasn’t easy to always be the loudest, funniest, friendliest person in the room; but it was the way it had to be. How else could Lance stay in control over how close he let anyone get while still getting some form of attention for his efforts at least? Even if it was just exasperated eye-rolls and groaning laughter.

Therefore, Lance had long since learned how to take care of his skin better than anyone else he knew. Well carefored skin was far less likely to show the scars than dry, unloved skin after all. And besides, it’s not like anyone else was ever going to bother with him enough to pamper him like that.

And it was imperative that no one knew about the crisscrossing scars, traced in scarlet every time he opened new ones on top of them. If no one knew his secret, it meant he could continue to have his fun, stealing his own enjoyment from each smile he brought to someone else's face.  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

  
Throughout the next few years, Keith learned what exactly the soon familiar sting and accompanying blue streaks across his wrist meant.

It hadn’t taken him very many times before he figured out the cuts were purposeful.

The realization had come the first time it happened more than once in rapid succession, maybe a month or so after the original night.

This time he had been up late reading, and therefore awake to experience the whole ordeal in detail.

First had been the initial pain of a sharp object pressed hard to a single point in his skin. Then a momentary hesitation before a sudden, fast and harsh slash across the entire wrist.

He had looked down just in time to watch as the second blue stripe appeared. Following the exact same pattern, perfectly paralleling the first.

No cat scratch acted like that.

This realization was what launched him into researching the strange parallel cuts on this mystery person’s wrist.

It was the first time Keith had ever come across the concept of self-harm. And he couldn’t wrap the stuttering wheels of his mind around it.

The things he read talked about it being something people did when life got too hard to handle. But as far as Keith was concerned, when life was hard, the last thing you wanted to do was make yourself any more vulnerable. To purposefully wound yourself as a way of trying to win the fight just didn’t make sense.

Keith had always found comfort in doing the exact opposite whenever he couldn’t handle life anymore. He would throw himself into his studies, or learn a new skill. Work out and strengthen himself. Whatever it took to add something to his arsenal in an attempt to avoid as much pain as he possibly could.

But this person was purposefully sabotaging themself. Damaging themself. Weakening themself.

Everything about it made him want to fight something.

There grew to be so many of them; crisscrossing each other, each increasingly numerous set piled on top of the rest. After too long, there was more pale blue to the inside of his wrist than his own skin color.

It pissed him off. He didn’t understand it. He couldn’t stand it.

How could someone ever think it was okay to purposefully tear at their own body like that? What kind of person could live in such a distorted view of reality? It just didn’t make sense.

Even still, time went on and as there was nothing he could do about them, he did his best to push them to the back of his mind. Never minding the intrusive stings of pain that accompanied each new mark, making him hiss involuntarily and interrupting his nights. Instead, he just focused as much as he could on his own life and did whatever he could to avoid contaminating this other person with any scars of his own.

He eventually grew used to almost everything about the marks. Aside from the meaning he could never grasp.

Oftentimes it was the confused looks from the people who noticed that got to him. Looks that so often wound up turning to uncomfortable pity or disgusted disdain, if they got a chance to process what they were seeing before Keith could hide it. It never failed to send Keith into an overly protective rage. Earning him a few suspensions for fighting, the label of “Anger Management Issues” on numerous report cards, and more than one instance of disgruntled guardians.

It was hard to explain just why it never failed to get to him so much.

It wasn’t that there were stains on his own skin. He wasn’t anywhere near vain enough to be bothered by the blue now smeared across his wrist.

It was the idea that these people were judging this person they had never even seen. They pitied them. Were grossed out by them. Looked down on them.

Just because Keith didn’t get it didn’t mean he would stand for anyone passing judgment on a person they so clearly had no way of understanding.

It was wrong. And no; he would never let it slide.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT: This chapter is entirely about Lance attempting suicide. Please bear that in mind when reading this and read with caution. The first section is an account of Lance's actions, and the second is how Keith responds. This chapter is also the chapter that my "VERY IMPORTANT" note about not wanting to romanticize self-harm or suicide is referring to.

The last time it happened, it was the most comforting experience Lance could imagine.

Unlike the first time he had brought a blade to his wrist two years prior, Lance wasn’t scared in the slightest.

He knew exactly what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it.

He had thought it over for months beforehand, planning out every single detail, running it over and over in his mind to keep him going. Doing everything in his power to tie up any loose ends and say his farewells to anyone who might care without letting on to his plans.

He had even gone so far as to clean his usually disaster area of a room. Sorting through all his stuff and giving as much of it away as he could under the guise of preparing to start at the Garrison.

But now the date had finally arrived. Tomorrow his family was planning to drop him off for his first year at the Garrison. For all they knew, his sentiments had been premature goodbyes in preparation for boarding school. Just the way he had wanted it.

And so there he sat on the bathroom floor, back against the door, trusty blade in hand, staring down at his arm.

The only thing about him that wasn’t calm was the hammering of his heart as if it was fighting against its cage, trying to flee its inevitable fate.

Tears raced each other down the now familiar tracks along his cheeks and jawline. There was no sobbing. He hadn’t had it in him to actually cry in almost a year. Just the silent stream of tears to show any sign of life inside his hollow, empty mind.

This was the right thing to do. He knew this. He was no use to anyone, just an obnoxious, too loud, over-the-top, overly emotional spare tire. There had obviously been something lacking from day one. Why else wouldn’t he have a soulmate when everyone around him did? He was sick and tired of taking up space and wasting everyone’s time. Especially considering he couldn’t even manage to be happy on his own.

And with the conviction of someone who was getting exactly what they deserved, he dug his blade deeper into his wrist than he ever had before as he drug it down his upward facing forearm, perpendicular to the rest of the cuts and scars snaking their way across his wrist.

Down he tugged, as hard and fast as he could.

Like unzipping a jacket, the flesh of his arm fell away, separating in the wake of his blade.

And for the first time in a long, long time, a single, loud, pained sob finally broke the surface and escaped his lips as he watched the flood of blood flow out from the open flesh of his arm. It pulsed in time with his heart, flow rising and falling in rhythm.

The pain didn’t even register as Lance watched as if from afar as the life escaped out through his arm before he finally closed his eyes and was lulled into the epitome of dreamless sleep. The release felt final this time, the pain associated with a disappointing life becoming a distant memory as he succumbed to the peace seeping into every fiber of his being.  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

  
The last time it happened, it was the most horrifying experience Keith could imagine.

He was lying in bed, finishing off the last of his summer assignment. It had been a crazy summer, what with his foster family prepping for the Kerberos mission and everything. So yeah, it wasn’t his fault he was only just now finishing the summer assignment the night before heading up to the Garrison.

For a single instant, Keith just registered the sudden pain at the end of his arm as the usual sting in his wrist before it all went horribly wrong.

Tonight the pain outstripped any time previous, causing him to drop his pen and grasp tightly at his arm, doubling over as all of his breath escaped him in a single, choked sob.

Lightning struck down his arm and coursed through his entire body, shaking him to his core.

It took way too long for his eyes to reopen and his bleary vision to clear away enough to see the single long stripe of the icy blue stretch from the center of his wrist down, almost to the crook of  
his elbow.

It took even longer for his brain to catch up to what he was seeing but when it did, the world, which had stopped spinning entirely at the initial shot of pain suddenly started spinning.

Double time.

Backward and upside down.

He couldn’t breathe as the ice of panic shoved its way up his spine followed immediately by the fire of agony.

No.

No. Please. No.

Please.

Before he had even registered what he was doing, his pocket knife was out and he had started carving small, calculated lines into the blue mess of his wrist.

“I LOVE YOU” was all it said when he was done.

The cuts weren’t that deep, but they still bled, the words that he hadn’t realized held an ounce of truth until this moment spilling red across his palm.

Once Keith recognized what he had done, he cursed, low and harsh, grabbing the towel still in his room from his shower earlier and wrapping it around his hand, enclosing his wrist in the black fabric.

He sat on his bed for who knows how long, shaking and exhausted from the sudden burst of pain and emotion that had wracked his body and sucked his breath away. But when he was sure the blood had stopped flowing, he unwrapped his hand and wiped away the rest of the blood as best as he could. There was no way he could get to the bathroom at this time of night.

Not without risking discovery, anyway.

So he was left to sit on his bed all night, staring at the horrid blue line down his arm and the angry, smudged, red letters across the top of his wrist.

There was no thinking that night. Which was probably good. No sleeping either. Which was also good, it turned out, as it left time for him to dig up the fingerless gloves his foster brother had given him before leaving on a mission to Kerberos.

At the time, they had probably been meant as a gag gift. Shiro had just said he thought they suited him. Now, though, they were about to prove useful.

There was no emotion to his thoughts. He didn’t feel like he had any emotion left. Just the logic telling him he needed to get ready for school and to cover up his arm so no one could see or question him.

He didn’t like unnecessary questions or judgments from people who didn’t know what they were talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is! A day early, even!! How about that, huh? Talk about a roller coaster ride.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!! Please let me know what you think! And please don't hate me...


	4. Chapter 4

It took roughly a week for Lance to fully understand he was still alive.

In large part because he spent most of it either asleep or having his senses dulled by the pain meds keeping his arm numb.

The first time he saw his arm unbandaged was what finally sealed the deal, waking him up fully.

It wasn’t the large, gross, Frankenstein-esque gash, sewn together with ugly black stitches that tore him out of his dream-like haze that shoved him back to reality. Knocking the breath out of him as it did so.

It was the three-word sentence that had appeared above it.

Three, mahogany red words scrawled in small, precise, uppercase letters across his wrist. Directly over the majority of the scars of his own making.

I LOVE YOU

There. On his arm. Actually there.

“You’re a lucky guy, you know that?” Spoke the nurse, currently in the process of re-wrapping his arm. Voice far too casual for the situation.

What do you say to something like that? And what was he referring to? Was Lance supposed to be lucky because he was alive? Or was he supposed to be lucky because of the impossible, dark red words etched into his wrist?

Lance just nodded in the man’s direction, not taking his eyes off of the new letters until they were covered up by the bandage.

The nurse chattered on, telling him that if he behaved himself, he should be free to go home the next day.

“Though you will be expected to attend compulsory meetings with the Garrison’s resident therapist three days a week, with bi-weekly doctor’s visits until the stitches get removed, to make sure your arm is healing properly. You did quite a number to it, kid.” He continued on, his voice only turning serious at the very end.

“I’m sorry,” Lance responded, finally finding his voice. He wasn’t sure why exactly he was apologizing, but he did so anyway.

“It’s not me you’re going to have to apologize to, my man.” The guy chuckled, drawing Lance’s vision to him only to nod in the direction of the door.

Shit.

Through the window he could see Vienna’s terrified expression pressed against the glass, with his mom’s tired, worried face only slightly further behind, looking in over his little sister’s head.

Swallowing hard against a wave of guilt, he gave them the best smile he could muster and waved his free hand at them.

Only his sister waved back before seeming to run out of patience, opening the door and charging in.

The ensuing conversation went about as well as one could expect, with the nurse excusing himself from the room at the sudden intrusion, leaving Lance at the mercy of Vienna’s tears and Mom’s vice grip on his bandage-free hand.

His own additions to the conversation were minimal; mostly consisting of ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again with varying amounts of guilt-laden tears. He couldn’t find it in himself to be angry that it hadn’t worked. He couldn’t even be surprised at the intensity of their reactions. As much as he wouldn’t have expected them, he figured it was only fair for them to be upset with him.

Apparently, Vienna had been the one to find him, her room having been close enough to the bathroom to hear his sob.

Miranda and Dad were at home. Apparently, they were taking turns spending the night with him aside from Vienna who, after having found him like that had straight up refused to leave his side, kicking up enough of a fuss that they were even letting her skip school for this.

Soon enough, though the conversation came to a halt after Lance had finally convinced Mom that he was still set on going to the Garrison. The last thing he wanted was to spend every waking hour he was home with his family spying on him and walking on eggshells.

Thankfully, now that he was clearly awake and functioning, he was able to convince his Mom and sister to go home for the night with promises of being there to check him out first thing in the morning and a family brunch before taking him to the Garrison.  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

  
It took roughly a week for Keith to fully understand that his soulmate was no longer alive.

There was no moment of sudden realization.

He didn’t get angry.

He didn’t even cry.

He was just...empty.

Almost everyone around him seemed to catch on to the general vibe he was giving off. Not bothering with trying to get to know him. And he couldn’t blame them. Here was a weird kid who always wore fingerless gloves and never bothered to interact with anyone outside of the necessary basics. Even his own teammates.

He didn’t mean to be rude to anyone, he really didn’t. But he had never been one for making friends, to begin with. His foster brother had been one of the only exceptions to the rule. His soulmate had been the other.

At least until now.

Now he was truly alone on this planet.

Shiro was gone somewhere out there in space, on his way to the edge of the solar system.

And his soulmate was...gone. Just gone.

So no. He couldn’t be bothered to remember his teammate’s names. Even if he felt a little bad about it.

No. He didn’t care about the loud, obnoxious cargo pilot who started appearing in a couple of his classes a week or so into the start of the year; all vibrato and wild hand gestures.

He was used to being alone. He had always preferred his own company where he could just focus on whatever he wanted to, instead of listening to the idle chatter of whoever was around him and worrying about saying the wrong thing and upsetting someone.

But over the past two years, he had grown used to the knowledge that he had someone else out there who was attached to him, even if they had never met.

Without realizing it, he had even grown to care for the person on the other end of the blue lines. As strange as it sounded, he truly had. Growing up, he had always been careful, never wanting to risk bothering someone else with his own pain.

For the past two years, though, he had come to be grateful for the pain he shared with this stranger.

Not for the pain itself. He still didn’t understand what could cause someone to purposefully harm themself, contrary to what the tender, slowly healing slices on the inside of his own wrist might suggest.

But he had long since found comfort in the knowledge that this mystery person wasn’t having to bear all that pain alone, and he had hoped this comfort had extended to them too.

But now everything was different.

Now he was entirely alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that! Two chapters in one week!!  
> See, I couldn't leave you all hanging for that long.  
> Lance lives!! See, I'm not really that mean!   
> Someone really should let Keith know...


	5. Chapter 5

Lance’s first year at the Garrison went surprisingly well, all things considered.

He actually liked and was doing well in all of his classes, which never happens. But literally all of them were about science, technology, and spaceflight. Which. Was. Awesome. No more needless history or math, unless it was of direct use to him.

Of course it was a bit of a disappointment when he was put on the Cargo Pilot track instead of Fighter class, but that’s what you get when you arrive a week late for testing. And hey, he was still going to FLY!

And his roommate was the best! When he’d first arrived, he had opened the door to a startled yelp before being lifted off the ground in a hug with a continuous string of “Hello! You must be Lance, I’m Hunk! Your new roomie!! Welcome to the Garrison! I was beginning to worry you’d never show up and I would be all alone the entire semester which would just be sad and…” in his ear.

Hunk, it turned out, was the best friend a guy could ask for.

At first, Lance had done everything he could to keep Hunk at the same arm’s length as everyone else, but there was just something about the guy that kept catching Lance off guard in the best of ways.

First off, the guy was basically a larger than life, genius teddybear. Seriously. The guy could do complex equations in his head and remembered EVERYTHING from class.

Without having to take notes. Like. Who does that?!

And he wasn’t boastful about it either. He was always available to help Lance with his engineering homework. All that technical stuff just didn’t make sense to Lance. He was way more into what the stuff could do. Not how it worked. But when Hunk explained it, it all made sense and never left Lance feeling like the idiot he was.

But that wasn’t why Lance couldn’t help but open up to him, in spite of himself.

Maybe it was the questions Hunk kept asking about him, in the most casual of ways but with genuine interest behind them. Maybe it was how open Hunk was with his own thoughts and emotions; never too embarrassed to tell Lance what he was thinking.

Even still, it took most of the first semester before Lance could bring himself to tell Hunk why exactly he had been a week late to the start of school, or to show him his left arm.

The truth finally came out during one of their late-night excursions. It didn’t matter if they were sneaking off grounds and into town or just up to the roof, Lance always had to work on Hunk all day to convince him to sneak out. Stealth wasn’t the big guy’s strong suit, and breaking the rules wasn’t his choice activity. But it was a clear night, surprisingly warm for as late into Fall as it was, so Lance was determined to get onto the roof and stargaze.

When they finally arrived after a few false starts thanks to Hunk conveniently forgetting something-or-other, they found that their choice spot was already taken by someone just sitting there alone. It was too dark to see anything except their vaguely human-shaped silhouette.

Lance was about to tell whoever it was to scram, but Hunk, in favor of abandoning their plans and turning back, pointed out that it could be a teacher waiting up there to catch anyone trying to do exactly what they were doing.

And he had a point. So instead of shooing the guy away from their spot, Lance just lead them around to the other side of the roof, out of sight and earshot from the intruder.

They just sat there for a while before either of them said anything. Hunk seeming to relax the longer they laid there, though Lance found himself just getting more and more stressed. He had been thinking about opening up to his new best friend for a while now, and although he hadn’t been planning on tonight being the night, he was finding himself wanting to get it over with; with the comforting vastness of space spreading out above them, reminding him how small he and his problems truly were, urging him on.

“So Hunk,” He heard his voice speaking up before he had fully decided to say anything. Oh well, here went nothing. “You remember how I was a week late to school at the start of the year?”

To Lance, his voice sounded surprisingly casual for the conversation it was starting, but Hunk seemed to pick up on the gravity of the discussion as he hoisted himself up from his back and turned to face Lance, legs crossed, a couple inches from his side.

Not wanting to look at Hunk’s reaction as he said it, Lance didn’t move from where he lay, hands behind his head.

“I was in the hospital.” He continued. Knowing that wasn’t near enough information, but finding himself short on words for once, and unsure of how he wanted to continue.

“Yikes. That sucks, man. What happened?” Hunk asked. A fair and valid question.

“I had- Well. I used to cut... and the night before school started I took it too far and tried to kill myself.” It wasn’t exactly the whole truth. It made it sound like it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. But Lance figured it was good enough for now.

He still couldn’t bring himself to look at Hunk, but his hearing suddenly felt like it could pick up every single little sound for miles around. At first, Hunk didn’t say anything. The unconscious drumming of his fingers against his knee stopped as he sucked in a quick, hard breath of air and held it.

And suddenly Lance regretted every decision he had ever made. Why did he ever think it was a good idea to tell this guy? Why had he even wanted to come to the Garrison to begin with? Space was awesome and all but was it really worth it? It wasn’t too late to drop out and become a hermit. That was always a valid option.

But he had still told Hunk, and he still wasn’t breathing. Right as Lance’s worry that he was going to pass out started beating out his fear for himself, however, Hunk released his breath in a woosh.

“Wow. Well, I’m glad it didn’t work.” Was the response that almost had Lance in tears. There was no disgust or fear in it. He sounded surprised, sure. Shocked, even. But it was also obvious, even to Lance, just how much his best friend had meant it.

“Yeah. Me too.” Lance returned, a small smile creeping onto his face before finally turning his head so he could see Hunk.

And he meant it.

He hadn’t realized that until this very moment.

But he meant it.

He was genuinely glad he was at the Garrison studying to become a pilot, and rooming with this guys who had so quickly become his best friend. He was even glad for the red words crossing his wrist and the person behind them, whoever they were.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

  
Keith’s first year at the Garrison went about as well as you could expect.

During the day everything was fine. Everyone learned not to mess with that Keith kid; and with his work ethic and natural skill, he proved himself the best pilot in the class and the teachers stopped bothering him too, as long as he did what he was asked.

So most of his days were spent with classes, training, studying, and avoiding those few people who got it in their heads to either befriend or confront him.

It was the nights that got to him.

Until it got too cold, he found himself spending most of his nights on the roof of the school. He’d wandered his way up there one night when he was feeling particularly alone. Even though he couldn’t see Pluto, he knew the general direction to look from Astronomy class, and it was comforting to think that even if he didn’t know it, he might be looking at Shiro’s ship.

Many nights, though, he didn’t look for Pluto or Shiro’s ship. Sometimes, he just looked out at the stars. He found that thinking about what they are, their nature, and the nature of the universe in general never failed to bring him a sense of peace he could never find anywhere else.

There was just something about the vastness of it all. It was all right there in front of him, just beyond his reach. Soon, he would be escaping this teeny pebble in favor of exploring the solar system, hell, maybe even beyond if he’s really lucky. Finding worlds unknown. No longer trapped to one singular place.

The universe is so fast, so impossible, it was comforting to be reminded of just how small he was.

When he wasn’t distracting himself with the night sky, however, he often found himself silently fuming in his bunk until he fell asleep.

And more often than not, his thoughts were filled with the faint blue lines and the person who had made them.

How could his soulmate just abandon him like that? Hadn’t they cared about the person on the other end of their bond, if nothing else?

Sure, they were off the hook. They didn’t have to deal with the permanent lines on their arm, forever marking the severance of the bond the two of them shared.

They didn’t have to live with the constant reminder that the one person he had ever told he loved them would never get his message.

Even as they healed over the course of the year, going from angry red scabs to brown ridges to slightly pearlescent lines, a shade or two lighter than the rest of his skin, he grew to hate his scars.

The words they spelled out were just a painful reminder. Reminder of the person he lost before he could meet them.

Reminder of the one time his own personal weakness got the better of him and let his emotions take over.

Reminder of the truth they spelled out. He really had grown to love this person. Somehow. As impossible as it sounded.

Reminder of the fear and rage that had brought them about.

But mostly they, and the long blue gash that he swore sometimes still hurt, were a reminder that he was alone.

He couldn’t bring himself to hate the blue marks. They weren’t his to hate. They belonged to the other person. He would never be okay with what they meant, but he couldn’t hate them or their maker.

But the letters were his doing.

And he hated them for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, here ya go. Back on schedule! And with Hunk to boot!!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty!! The previous chapter was a rather Lance heavy one. So this one is more about Keith, poor baby!

If anything, Lance’s second year at the Garrison went even better than the first.

Though really, the entirety of it was just a rollercoaster. One thing after another.

As rollercoasters usually do, everything started at a low point; about halfway through summer break, news broke of the failure of the Kerberos mission, and it devastated the entire world. It was hard to believe that this mission, which was the first of its kind and had been made up of only the best the Garrison had to offer, had been felled by pilot error.

Takashi Shirogane, who had been the pilot on the mission, was a celebrity. Everybody knew of him. An ace pilot and the sweetheart of the space program, he had been a shoo-in for the mission. Lance and Hunk even had a poster of him in their dorm room, per Lance’s insistence, of course.

But the summer’s tragedy quickly got pushed to the back of his mind as soon as school started back up. All it took was a glance at the class roster board on his first day back. He had been moved up to Fighter class!!! And Hunk was going to be his Engineer!!! And to top it all off, that too-good-for-school Keith was nowhere to be found!!!!

Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games. Being upgraded to Fighter class brought with it a whole new level of expectations from the teachers, who had no problem reminding Lance of exactly how much of a failure and nobody he really was.

And without his old vice, he really didn’t know how to take it all.

There were SO many nights, after Hunk had fallen asleep, when he was left alone with his own thoughts where he just wanted his old release. But he couldn’t do it. And it pissed him off.

He couldn’t bring himself to cut. Not when doing so brought him face-to-face with unavoidable proof that someone out there knew his secret and cared about his wellbeing.

Those three words were all it took.

And he found himself hating the person who wrote them on his wrist. Not only because they had taken away the most effective tool Lance had in his arsenal against the demons in his head, but because they were an utter idiot.

How DARE they have done such a thing, whoever they are. For LANCE of all people. Here they were, someone so kind and self-sacrificing that they carved words into their own skin. And they had done it for someone they could have only known by his self-induced scars he must have left stained on their skin.

Of course, he hadn’t known he was hurting anyone else with his actions. But there was no way for them to know that.

So for all they knew, Lance must be some broken, selfish, screwup who couldn’t handle life and didn’t care about the person on the other side.

Yet they had carved themselves up for him anyway.

They were such a stupid idiot. Utterly wasted on him.

But now that Lance knew his wounds hurt someone else out there, he just couldn’t bring himself to make them anymore. And it sucked.

But eventually, he got used to it, as people tend to do with such things.

Lance didn’t cut a single time over the year that followed.

Instead, almost in compensation, it seemed, the maker of the words on his wrist started leaving their own marks.

They weren’t on purpose, that much was clear. They were too random and varied for that. But every so often, class would be interrupted by Lance crying out in surprise as an invisible force sliced across his ankle or jabbed him in the side; leaving the telltale maroon marks in its wake.

The last of which left a mark tracing the lifeline on his palm, thin enough that you couldn’t see it unless he stretched his hand as far open as it would go.

To be honest, he didn’t have much time to dwell on what the sudden influx of markings might mean. Not between the added pressure of being a Fighter pilot, and getting to know the third member of his team, who was actually proving more difficult to befriend than Lance had expected.

Which was why it seemed perfectly rational to follow the dude up to the roof on that fateful night at the start of the first semester of the second year being on a team with him.

Years later, it would all feel like a blur when Lance looked back on that night. One minute he and Hunk were checking out what Pidge was up to, ya know, team bonding and all that. The next, an alien ship had crash-landed and he was sneaking his hero, apparently back from the dead, out of a Garrison’s ambulance ship with the help of Keith of all people. Keith. The asshole with a mullet who had mysteriously dropped out a year ago.

The next day was even more surreal. He’d spent the night in his mulleted rival’s secret hideout hut in the middle of the desert with the previously mentioned back-from-the-dead hero going on about aliens and something called Voltron. Which was super weird since Pidge had been going on about it right before they’d found Shiro. Then they were out in the desert searching for cave markings. Ya know. Like normal people. It was all very exciting even if none of it made sense.

And if that weren’t enough, when they did find the cave markings, they started glowing, and before you know it Lance was piloting a giant alien robot lion through a wormhole in an attempt to not get murdered by an alien ship with Keith, Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro along for the ride.

Then they actually met some aliens and fought off that warship with a lion-themed mecha after having an easter egg hunt for each of their respective robot lions and Lance’s life was never the same again.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  
If anything, Keith’s second year at the Garrison was even worse than the first.

The news that started it all came at the beginning of the second summer session. Call him a nerd but he had figured it would be in his best interest to take as many classes as he could, finish school as soon as possible and all that.

He’d actually been at lunch, eating a rather bland meal of barbecued pork, mashed potatoes, and a mixture of cooked peas and carrots.

It’s funny how some memories stick with you, sharp and clear; while others from the same instance blur and fade as soon as they’re made.

What Keith did remember, aside from how the carrots and peas mushed together under minimal pressure from his tongue, tasting identical; was how every screen in the dining hall turned on at once.

What Keith did remember was the lack of emotion in the lady’s voice as it echoed through the hall announcing, “This just in. The Galaxy Garrison has released a statement reporting a loss of contact with and subsequent crash of the mission to Pluto’s moon, Kerberos.”

What Keith did remember was somehow managing to inhale his current bite of vinegar-drenched pork and started coughing loud enough to turn the attention of those around him away from the monitors to watch his show.

By the time he had his breathing under control enough to hear what the newscaster continued to say, a picture of Shiro, along with the father and son scientist duo was parading across every screen.

What Keith did remember was hearing “...crash was caused by pilot error, with no survivors…”

No survivors.

What Keith didn’t remember was how he wound up in a screaming match with Commander Iverson.

What Keith did remember were the words “Classified information.” and “Permanent Expulsion”

What Keith did remember was rushing to his room and shoving all of his belongings into a duffel bag and a backpack.

What Keith didn’t remember was breaking into the Garrison’s vehicle hold and stealing a hoverbike before escaping out the bay doors a split second before the entire campus went into lockdown.

What Keith did remember was happening upon an abandoned shack in the middle of the desert, right as the sun was dipping below the horizon.

The door was easy enough to jimmy open and there was just enough light left over from the setting sun for a quick search of the place to make sure it was truly empty.

And then night fell.

And for the first time since he could remember, Keith cried.

The tears were more in anger than anything else, though he didn’t know what he was so angry about. It hadn’t yet hit him that Shiro was never coming back, and he didn’t give enough of a shit about the Garrison right now to be truly angry with them. But whatever he was angry about, Keith cried himself to sleep that night, feeling more alone than he could ever remember feeling before.

The next day left Keith running on empty. No shits left to give, no tears left to cry, no voice left after screaming all night in his sleep.

But he also had no food to eat, no water to drink, and no real home to return to.

So, taking stock, he set out to fix what he could. Luckily, the bike he had stolen had a full tank of fuel, and he still had a decent amount of cash from not having any reason to spend his savings while at the Garrison.

It was only a 30-minute jaunt to the nearest small town, so Keith was able to stock up on supplies, something about his expression stopping the cashier girl in her tracks when she tried to strike up some small talk.

When he got back to the shack, he set about tidying the place up. Whoever had lived here before had already taken care of the basics. There wasn’t any bed, but there was a decent enough sofa, judging by his experience sleeping on it the previous night. The kitchen seemed to be in working order, water pipes connecting to an underground oasis by the looks of it. There was even a working generator in the side room attached to the main structure, and with the push of a few switches and a little elbow grease to help the thing along, it roared to life and voila, let there be light. And computers, apparently. Though the ancient boxy machines looked more like the artifacts of bygone eras you’d find in museums than anything that had been built in Keith’s lifetime.

Oh well. Waste not, want not, or however the saying went. Once Keith had finished putting everything away, he set about messing around with the dinosaur-esque computers, seeing if he could make anything out of them.

But that didn’t last very long. He just couldn’t sit still. Sitting still meant thinking about things and Keith was not about to do any of the sort, right now. So he decided to explore the area a bit more. On foot, because the ion fuel in the bike wouldn’t last forever, and that stuff was expensive.

So he grabbed his water bottle and a snack, picked a direction, and wandered. At first he was concerned about getting lost, but for whatever reason, he had no issue staying in a straight line, as if he knew where he was going. Eventually, he found what looked to be the very last remnants of what would have once been an impressive canyon, a few millennia ago.

There were a few pillars of red rock poking out of the sand like stand-alone columns of ancient ruins before he reached a cliffside that stretched on, past what he could see.

This, he figured, would be a good stopping point for the day as he had already stopped for his snack and was nearly halfway done with the water bottle.

When he turned to head back, he felt a sharp pain against his left ankle. The pain was all too familiar, though the placement was new.

He couldn’t help the wave of excitement and relief that washed over him at the familiar pain as his head whipped down to get a look at the source of the sting.

The excited laugh that had been about to escape him died in his throat, though, when he saw, not the blue streak he was impossibly expecting, but a thin red line, growing bolder as blood began to trickle out from the scrape on his leg.

He had noticed the rock jutting out of the sand before but had apparently misjudged its proximity.

Just as the instinctual relief had done moments before, a wave of guilt poured through him before he could remember that there was no one to feel guilty for hurting.

It didn’t matter if he got hurt anymore. There was no one to feel his pain or worry about him if he got hurt. The only two people who might have done so were no longer alive.

So he did what any reasonable person would do.

He laughed.

He laughed at himself for a good, long while before wiping away the blood and choosing to ignore the sting for the trek back home.

Once he made it back to the shack, he set about dressing his ankle, and making himself some semblance of a suitable dinner; before clamoring his way onto the slanted wooden roof and finally allowing himself to think.

Shiro was dead.

He wasn’t coming back.

Keith was now entirely alone in the universe.

No tears came as this realization finally began to sink in. They had all been spent last night.

He just felt an emptiness where comfort used to be when he looked up, toward Kerberos.

But the longer he stared at the sky, the more his thoughts kept wandering back to the cliffside he’d stumbled upon earlier.

It was easier than thinking about anything else, so after a few futile attempts to reroute his thoughts, Keith started planning another trip out there tomorrow.

Eventually, a few more tomorrows turned into weeks which turned into months and then into what must have been going on a year or so. Keith lost track of what day it was to be perfectly honest. It was only at the very end of that year that Keith bothered to get a calendar.

But throughout the year, his curiosity with the cliffs turned into an obsession as something he couldn’t understand kept drawing him to them.

He marked time by his discoveries and how long it took each new scratch and scrape to heal.

First came the cave.

Then the gash on his side from losing his footing as he climbed up the cliff while looking for another entrance to said cave.

The cave drawings themselves were discovered the same day he sliced up his palm, thanks to taking off his glove to feel the markings themselves.

After a long while, once he had explored all he could, he wound up spending most of his time in the shack, studying the copies and pictures of the markings themselves. Each of his scars had fully healed by the time he’d managed to translate some of the more basic markings, and not a moment too soon, as it turned out.

The markings were mostly numbers. Dates. All pointing to some big, cosmic event happening on one particular day; which, once Keith had gotten his hands on a calendar and figured out the current date, turned out to be a week away.

Keith did his best to prepare for whatever event the carvings in the cave might have been pointing to.

But nothing could have prepared him for what actually happened.

There was no way he could have expected to find Shiro, alive but looking like an entirely different person from the Shiro in his memory. Robot arm included.

He couldn’t have expected to team up with three others who apparently knew him from the Garrison to break Shiro out of an ambulance.

And he certainly hadn’t expected his little desert shack to go from just him to bursting with five people overnight.

After not interacting with another person longer than it took him to pay for his groceries for roughly a year, the sudden onslaught of constant talking and human interaction was overwhelming, to say the least.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t able to appreciate just how amazing it was when the cave markings he’d long since memorized glowed blue as soon as the Lance guy touched them, or feel the thrill of excitement at the wave of information that burst through his mind as the blue mechanical lion woke up.

What it did mean, was that it wasn’t until the first night on the alien planet; laying in a bed for the first time in a year, alone for the first time in two days, that he was able to process any of the new information.

Shiro was really back. He wasn’t alone anymore. He was surrounded by people who relied on him.

It didn’t completely erase the loneliness constantly nibbling away at his insides. There was no way this bunch of strangers could ever do that.

But maybe he didn’t have to be completely alone, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, we are in the home stretch! The next chapter is the last one!! Will the truth FINALLY come out?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TADAA!!! And a few days early too!!!!! Aren't I a nice author. Please enjoy!!

Lance would never forget the day the impossible occurred.

It had already been one for the history books, with Voltron saving the Arusians from that insane robo-beast.

In fact, Lance was pretty sure he was 90 percent adrenaline as they were all leaving their lions after the battle.

First Pidge, followed quickly by Shiro had gone off on their own, all introspective and awkward for whatever reason. And Hunk had decided a celebratory dinner was in order, so he was off to the kitchens with Coran. Allura hadn’t returned yet from doing her princess thing at the Arusian village, kissing babies and making alliances and all that jazz they had been trying to do before the Galra had so rudely disturbed them with that monster.

So that had left Keith as the only one around to re-live the glory of what had just gone down.

Not his first choice, but hey, his whole discovery of creating a sword out of nowhere was pretty awesome.

And for once, Keith didn’t seem to mind his rambling.

“...And then you were all ‘Hey my lion can do the coolest thing ever!’” Lance continued on in his story after they had changed back into their casual clothes, his years of experience keeping his left arm out of view allowing him to slip into his jacket without Keith noticing his scars or breaking stride in his story. “and PSHROOM! It pulled a giant sword out of nowhere!!! Like this!”

In his excitement to demonstrate exactly how it had happened, Lance didn’t wait for Keith to finish getting his glove on as he ran up behind him, grabbed his arm and brandished it like the lion had done with the sword. Sure, it was the opposite arm from the one Voltron had used, but it still got his point across.

He hadn’t meant for Keith’s glove to go flying off, inciting a roar of rage from the red paladin as Keith tried to shove Lance off of him.

But Lance only barely registered Keith’s cry, his grip on Keith tightening as Lance froze in place, momentarily stopping Keith from maneuvering out of his grasp.

I LOVE YOU

The three, painfully familiar words; having long since burned themselves forever into Lance’s memory, stared back at him from the sliver of pale, blue-stained skin that showed above the edge of Keith’s jacket sleeve.

They were the wrong color, and the skin they were marking was the wrong color, and they were textured like scars instead of the smooth streaks Lance was used to seeing. But Lance would recognize the writing anywhere.

No way.

He felt Keith tense up as he registered what Lance was gawking at. But instead of releasing his rival like he probably should have, Lance spun him around and forcibly slid the tight, red sleeve higher up Keith’s arm.

And there, plain as it was on his own arm, though entirely smooth, and unnaturally blue, was the long, tell-tale gash that Lance had only recently learned not to be so ashamed of.

“Back OFF!!” Keith roared, ripping his arm out of Lance’s grasp before launching himself backward and away from Lance, who was still firmly rooted in place.

And with one look at Keith’s face, all rage, hurt, and shock; the impossible answer to the sight before him clicked into place.

It was KEITH.

Lance did the only thing he could think to do in the face of such a realization.

He ran.  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Keith would never forget the day the impossible occurred.

And not due to discovering a new ability while fighting a giant monster as Voltron.

Or because he was manhandled by Lance of all people, after the battle.

Keith had seen many reactions to the marks on his arm, ranging from confusion to discomfort and judgment. Each of which he hated. But Lance’s reaction was something entirely new.

It was fear.  
And then it was gone, as Lance suddenly took off, bolting down the hallway without explanation.

“Lance! Wait!!” He yelled, taking off after the blue paladin.

Obviously, something was wrong, and Keith had no intention of letting Lance blow it out of proportion.

But he either didn’t hear or was ignoring him.

So down the hallway they raced, Lance, seeming to have no idea where he was going in his attempt to get away from Keith.

But finally, a few floors above where they had started, in an area of the castle Keith had never been too, he finally got close enough to tackle Lance to the ground.

“What.” He huffed, out of breath. “The hell was that for?”

Instead of an answer, Lance seemed to panic and tried to kick him off.

“Get off!!”

“I will! As soon as you explain what just happened.” Keith countered.

For a moment, Lance looked like he was stuck somewhere between strangling Keith and bawling his eyes out.

“Fine.” All at once, all the fight seemed to leave the blue paladin, as he lay limp, even after Keith rolled off of him.

“Just... Don’t hate me… Okay?”

Once again, a response Keith had not expected out of Lance. He had thought Lance was finally starting to get over that whole rival thing Keith had apparently forgotten about.

“Lance,” Keith sighed. Might as well get it over with, though what it had to do with his arm, Keith couldn’t imagine. “I don’t hate you. I’m sorry if I offended or threatened you back at the Garrison-”

“What? No. It has nothing to do with that!” Lance interrupted, still looking scared, though more of a nervous sort than the prey animal look he’d had before.

“Okay... then why else did you make me chase you halfway across the castle?”

Instead of answering him, Lance sighed, sitting up so he was directly facing Keith, less than a foot away.

Without looking at him, Lance pulled up his sleeve.

At first, Keith didn’t get it. Yep. That’s an arm...with a raised, still slightly reddened scar running down the length of it..directly to words written across his wrist Keith didn’t need to read upside down to know what they said.

“That’s impossible.” He heard himself say.

He reached over and grabbed Lance’s offered arm, turning himself so he could hold his arm parallel for comparison.

It was something like looking at a familiar picture alongside its negative.

Exactly where his own scarred words crossed his wrist, dark red lines marked Lance’s. The ice-blue lines crisscrossing his own arm were matched, streak for streak, with faint, barely visible scars on the other.

“You’re dead.” His mouth continued talking, without his permission.

“What?” Lance cried, flinching away from Keith.

“You died. Over a year ago. You killed yourself. Right here.” Keith’s finger traced the hated blue mark down his arm as he spoke. Tears coming out of nowhere to prickle at the corners of his eyes. “I didn’t know what to do or how to help. I tried to tell you...but you disappeared. You left me alone. You-you...” Words he had never spoken before started spilling out of his mind into the air between them. Why couldn’t he get his mouth to stop moving?

“Keith. Woah. Hey. Buddy.” Lance spoke over him, quieting him and wrapping him up in a hug he didn’t know how to get out of.

“You left me.”

“Okay, okay. Hold up.” Lance talked on, the alarm and disbelief in his voice being covered over by his attempt to sound calming and relaxed. “First off, obviously I didn’t go anywhere, or else I wouldn’t be here now. Secondly, I had no idea you even existed until afterward when I woke up and saw…” Lance paused to clear his throat instead of directly referring to the words Keith knew he was talking about.

“Hey guy- Is everything alright?” Shiro’s voice asked, head peeking around the corner.

“Hah! I win!!” Lance yelled, suddenly shoving Keith to the ground, blocking Shiro’s view of their exposed arms with his body.

“Better than alright!” He laughed with a fake air of triumph in his voice “Yours truly just OWNED Keith in a wrestling match!”

“Heh. That’s what you think. We’ll see who wins next time.” Keith threw in for good measure as he nodded at Lance, got up, quickly wiping at his eyes and pulling his sleeve down as he did so, so Shiro wouldn’t see his tears.

Shiro didn’t seem to question it.

“Haha. Okay. Well, dinner’s ready. Come on down you two. You can continue on later.”

Keith had so many questions. Years worth of not understanding. But now wasn’t the time to ask them. Instead, he walked down to dinner with the people who were quickly becoming his family; soulmate. And to top it all off, Lance of all people was smiling impossibly at his side; as if he was as happy and full of disbelief as Keith felt.

He really wasn’t alone anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAANNNDDDD That's a wrap!!!  
> Soooo... What did ya think?
> 
> ALSO: I know it is a bit of an abrupt ending, they finally figure each other out and boom it ends. So! I am considering doing an Epilogue if people are interested. Here's the thing. I could do it from anyone's perspective (including Lance or Keith, of course). Whose perspective would you like to have the Epilogue be from?


	8. Epilogue

Lance couldn’t help his jaw dropping at the sight before him.  
  
And it made him want to run and hide. Or scream in rage. One or the other.  
  
Things had been rather awkward between them after their discovery. To be perfectly honest, they had straight up avoided the subject of their marks when they did talk, not that they’d had much time to come to terms with their revelation before Sendak had decided to make an ass of himself.  
  
Of course, the marks and all of the less than pleasant topics they brought with them couldn’t be avoided forever. And when Lance was forced to face the music, it hurt.  
  
It had only been a couple days since he’d left the cryo pod after the crystal exploded, and he had been itching for a swim. He’d asked Keith if he wanted to join, as an olive branch after having snapped at him when he first woke up. Lance had only meant the quip about not remembering their bonding moment as a joke, but according to the cold shoulder Keith had been giving him since, that’s not how it had come across.  
  
Keith had, surprisingly, taken him up on his offer. An offer Lance now deeply regretted.  
  
Conversation had already been pretty slim on the way to the pool (though thankfully not as forced as their previous ones) but it stopped entirely when Lance forgot what he was saying mid-sentence when Keith took his shirt off.  
  
There, like an ugly blue starburst covering almost the entirety of Keith’s back in uneven, messy streaks was all that remained of Lance’s injury from when the crystal had exploded. Lance’s own wound had been healed completely by the cryo-pods, leaving nothing, not even a slightly discolored patch, behind.  
  
In other words, Lance was perfectly fine while Keith was having to live with the permanent repercussions.  
  
It wasn’t fair.  
  
It wasn’t right.  
  
It was disgusting.  
  
It was-  
  
“What are you staring at?”  
  
It took Lance a moment to register that Keith was indeed talking to him, the only other person in the swimming pool area. The one who had just trailed off mid-sentence and by now had entirely lost track of what they were talking about.  
  
“N-Nothing.” Lance stammered. “It’s nothing. Just thinking. Believe it or not, I do so every once in awhile.” By the end of his sentence, Lance had pulled himself back into focus, and even threw in a grin for good measure.  
  
“Liar.” Keith said, his threatening glare somewhat marred by how his hair appeared to stick straight up, thanks to the entire pool being upside down.  
  
Lance allowed himself a giggle at that.  
  
Keith clearly wasn’t buying any of it but at this point, Lance didn’t care. He just turned around to take his shirt off so as not to have to see either Keith’s stained back or his annoyed, concerned, confused glare anymore. But as he pulled his shirt over his shoulders, he could feel Keith’s eyes on his own unscathed back, which felt even worse. His muscles tensed as he quelled the urge to writhe about in a pointless attempt to shake off the imagined residue he could feel left behind from his non-existent scar. Instead, he threw his shirt against the wall and, without looking at Keith, he started a countdown as he readied himself to race the red paladin to the water.  
  
Of course, Lance couldn’t really tell who had actually touched the water first, but once his head broke the surface after his perfect dive, he loudly declared himself the absolute winner anyway.  
  
Keith, who was already upright and swimming toward Lance, didn’t seem to think this was a fair call if the wall of water he directed toward Lance’s face was anything to go by.  
  
Now it was on. The water was Lance’s turf, freestyle champion for six years running that he was. He was not going to be outdone by Keith in a swimming pool of all places. So with a sneered grin he could feel stretching across his face, he brought out his secret weapon. Squeezing his hands just so, he let loose two perfectly aimed jets of water directly up Keith’s unsuspecting nose, inciting a satisfactory shout as Keith was forced to turn away, showing his back to Lance once again.  
  
And once again, Lance froze as his stomach dropped so fiercely, it was a wonder it didn’t pull him underwater with it.  
  
Apparently, Keith had gone to tackle Lance, tired of the water doing the fighting for them, but Lance didn’t notice. In fact, he didn’t notice much of anything until the frozen image of Keith’s ruined back, matching arm outstretched in full view, was replaced by Keith’s eyes, alarmingly intense and uncomfortably close all of a sudden.  
  
“What.” Keith spoke, voice serious and monotone, daring Lance to evade him again.  
  
“What do you mean ‘What’?” Lance stupidly took him up on the dare.  
  
Next thing Lance knew, Keith had him cornered, back scraping against the corner of the pool, one of Keith’s hands grasping the solid surface on either side of Lance, caging him in. Lance knew he could easily get out of it, but he was just too tired.  
  
Tired of the awkwardness.  
  
Tired of the silences.  
  
Just tired.  
  
So instead of diving further down to swim away like he should have, he hoisted himself up so he was sitting on the edge of the floor, waiting for Keith to do the same beside him as he wracked his brain for words that didn’t sound as bad as he felt.  
  
Keith, for his part, waited patiently. Or impatiently as it were, seeing as his right thumb kept rubbing absentmindedly across the inside of his left wrist. Directly across the raised letters Lance hated so much.  
  
Lance couldn’t pull his eyes away as he finally gave up on finding the perfect words and, with a sigh, just let loose and hoped for the best.  
  
“I...I’m sorry.” He started, internally kicking himself for sounding so much like a whimpering puppy.  
  
Keith’s thumb paused, blocking all but “I LO” and the start of some of the silvery blue smears from Lance’s view.  
  
“For what?” Keith sounded genuinely confused.  
  
With a sigh, Lance redirected his gaze from Keith’s wrist to his own, where he found his own thumb frozen in nearly the exact same position. Though his own thumb resumed its stroking as he fumbled on.  
  
“For. Everything. I guess. For being your soulmate.” His voice momentarily giving out as he voiced the truth for the first time.  
  
  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
  
Keith couldn’t help his jaw dropping at Lance’s words.  
  
He didn’t know what to say, but that was apparently okay because Lance kept going.  
  
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a horrible soulmate. I put you through so much unnecessary pain and left you with so many ugly marks. It’s so unfair to you!” By the time he broke for breath, Lance’s voice was raised and wet from sobs Keith could hear him holding back. But before Keith had a chance to say anything, Lance once again continued on.  
  
“It doesn’t even matter that I didn’t know you were there, because I shouldn’t have risked it!! I knew it didn’t make sense that anyone would ever care enough about me to constitute such a connection so I just assumed such a person didn’t exist! StuPID LANCE!”  
  
Was Lance seriously blaming himself for Keith not causing any marks for so long?  
  
“But that’s stupid!” Keith cried out, instantly regretting his choice of words when Lance flinched away.  
  
“Not that you’re stupid!” He stammered, trying to fix it. “Look. It makes sense that you wouldn’t know I was there. I purposefully tried not to leave you any marks. I didn’t want to be hurting someone I didn’t know-”  
  
“But See!!” Lance interrupted him, finally looking at him for the first time since the conversation started. “That’s just it!! While I was over here making wrong assumptions, you were being kind to me! I can just imagine what it must have been like for you the whole time I was leaving blue marks on your skin. And yet, when I couldn’t even die properly, you sacrificed your own skin just to try and help me? Even though all you could POSSIBLY know about me was how messed up and selfish I am? You couldn’t even know that I didn’t realize you were feeling and seeing it all!! You must have thought I was so selfish that I didn’t even care about hurting you! And yet you still did that! You still were willing to not just try to help me, but to do so in a way that hurt you!!”  
  
All of the energy seemed to leave Lance by the end of his rant. He took in a breath and looked like he was about to continue on before suddenly slumping down and shaking his head at his lap; his closed eyes dripping with too much water to just be residual wetness from the pool.  
  
Lance might have been shaking as well, but Keith himself was shaking too much at this point to really tell. He was in shock. There was so much whirling around inside his head. To be perfectly honest, he hadn’t been able to keep up with Lance’s speech, seeing as his brain had started spinning out half way through.  
  
He didn’t know what to make of it all. Since the revelation, he had already been having a hard time reconciling the Lance he knew with the person on the other end of the blue marks.  
  
Lance was loud and brash and obnoxious and silly. Lance was the kind of sunshine that hurt your eyes it was so bright and in your face. The kind of music you hear when you’re at a concert and everything is just a little too much to handle. Lance was warmth and cockiness and full of life.  
  
The person at the end of the lines was dead. They had been fragile and had left him alone years ago. Before he had so much as laid eyes on Lance. They had been broken and obviously hurting in ways Keith couldn’t understand.  
  
Keith just looked at Lance for a moment. He looked harder than he’d ever dared to look; and for the first time ever, he saw the person behind the marks. He saw the face of someone who thought so little of themselves that tearing repeatedly into their own skin meant nothing. He saw someone so broken and tired that they had lost their inherent need to live.  
  
He saw Lance, the one who had made the marks on his skin.  
  
“I’ve never understood it.” Keith finally spoke. His voice sounding quieter and rougher than he had meant.  
  
“Understood what?” All the life had drained out of Lance’s voice, but at least he was still talking to Keith.  
  
“Well, any of it, really.” Keith returned. “How the person making the lines could damage themselves on purpose like that, to begin with. Or how you could be the same person as the one who would do such a thing. I mean. You’re always so. Well. You.”  
  
“Well, that’s easy.” Lance chuckled bitterly. Not looking up, but moving his left arm into his lap so he could glare at it. “As far as I knew, I was only hurting me. It’s not like I was ever doing damage to anything important.” Lance winced at the hiss that left Keith’s lips at that. But he continued on before Keith could counter him. “It was just a quick and easy release that, as long as I could keep anyone from knowing about it, didn’t do anyone harm and made life marginally more tolerable.”  
  
Rage boiled up from under Keith’s gut. The same rage that always took hold of him whenever anyone dared insult the person behind Keith’s marks.  
  
“How could you?!” Keith growled. His sudden change of tone startling Lance into looking at him.  
  
“How could you dare think you aren’t important? How on earth could you possibly harm yourself and think there was anything okay about it?! Is that why you pulled your little stunt back there? Throwing yourself between Coran and the explosion?? You think it’s just okay for you to be hurt like that?!” Tears of anger stung at the corner of Keith’s eyes. Years worth of loss and betrayal tangled together in his throat.  
  
“Oh, you’re one to talk!” Lance shouted back. “You’re such a hypocrite!! You’re the one who carved a blatant lie into your own wrist on the off chance some stranger who had showed zero regard for you might see it!!”  
  
A lie.  
  
Lance thought it had been a lie.  
  
All the anger whooshed out of him like air from a balloon. Which was why his voice had dropped to almost a whisper by the time he spoke again.  
  
“You think I didn’t mean it?” Keith asked.  
  
“Of course you didn’t mean it. You couldn’t have meant it.” Lance looked up at Keith, confusion warring with anger for control of his face.  
  
“Lance, I absolutely meant it.” Keith felt the flush on his cheeks turning a darker shade as self-consciousness took over from anger.  
  
“I didn’t fully understand it until that night, but I fully meant it.” Keith sighed. He figured he owed it to Lance to at least attempt to explain himself.  
  
“Look. I’ve never said such things lightly. And I’m no good with this stuff. But here’s the thing, Lance. Before Voltron, there were only two people I’d ever cared about. My foster brother, Shiro; and the person behind the blue marks, you.” Keith glanced up at Lance’s face just in time to watch the epiphany of Shiro being Keith’s brother to be overshadowed by the realization that Keith was talking about Lance as well.  
  
“I never understood what would bring someone to hurt themselves like you would do, but for some reason, I found myself caring a lot about the person on the other side, leaving the marks. I knew you were hurting and I had no way of helping. I couldn’t stand it, but I cared. I actually got into many a fight because of it. But when faced with the sudden fear of this person leaving me the night you…”  
  
They both stiffened and Keith saw Lance reach for his scar just as Keith did the same with his blue streak. “The night I got this...I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t know how to reach you, I tried anyway, but I couldn’t stand the idea of you leaving me. When I never got any new streaks after that day, I took it as affirmation that they had...that you had died.”  
  
“I’m…” Lance trailed off awkwardly.  
But Keith wasn’t done. He was only going to say this once, so he figured, he had better get it all out before he lost his nerve.  
  
“I hated you. I was so angry with you for leaving me. I didn’t know you weren’t aware I was here. I thought you had known and left me anyway. Decided that the potential of me wasn’t worth living for. But eventually I got over it, though I stopped caring about potentially hurting you.”  
  
Lance looked exhausted. Like he wanted to be done with hearing all this. And Keith wanted to agree, but there was one more thing he thought Lance needed to hear. Needed to get through that thick skull of his.  
  
“And then I met you. This loud, cocky, obnoxious boy. And Shiro came back. And suddenly I had a whole Voltron family. It’s been insane, but I already know that, even outside of our connection and outside of having known Shiro for so long; you guys are all my family. For the first time, I am surrounded by a family that I genuinely love and care about. I don’t know what I would do if I were to ever lose one of you.”  
  
“Probably something stupid and dangerous.” Keith heard Lance murmur, in time with him.  
  
“Shut up, idiot.” Keith chuckled, pushing Lance into the water.  
  
Sputtering, Lance popped right back up.  
  
“Look. The point is. I’m glad you’re my soulmate. I’m glad it’s always been you, and that you are alive and here with me. Even if I don’t understand you most of the time and you get on every last nerve in my body, you matter and you had better not ever leave me again. Got it?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah.” Lance laughed.  
  
“Promise me.” Keith demanded. Refusing to let it drop until he got what he wanted.  
  
“I-” Lance paused, looking surprised that Keith would be so adamant about it.  
  
“I promise.” Lance finally spoke, looking up and locking eyes with Keith as he treaded water.  
  
Satisfied, he let the conversation drop and dared Lance to a race. Two laps across the pool before they headed down to join the rest of the group for dinner.  
  
Unfortunately for Keith, he hadn’t realized just how good of a swimmer Lance was, and even though he wasn’t bad himself, he found Lance waiting for him with a smug grin plastered on his face when he reached the end of the second lap.  
  
Of course Lance wouldn’t let Keith leave without taunting him all the way to and then down the elevator.  
  
But before they reached the dining hall where they could hear all the other voices, Lance stopped in his tracks and turned to face Keith with the most genuine smile Keith had ever seen gracing his face.  
  
“I’m glad you’re my soulmate, too.”  
  
And with that smile still on his face, Lance turned back to the doors and opened them to the bright, pleasant cacophony that was everyone in the dining hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaannnnddd there you have it!! These boys definitely needed to talk things out. I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I have!!! Please let me know what you think!!!


End file.
